Saturday, February 17, 2018

Staunton, February 16 – The Russian
Federation de facto has been a unitary
state for a long time, Moscow experts say; and it is rapidly returning to a
system of governors general.But that
does not require that the Kremlin disband the non-Russian republics. It can
simply impose its own people and policies on them.

At a meeting of the Rosbalt
political club, four experts, commentator Aleksandr Zhelennin says, agreed that
“today the transformation of Russian into a unitary state is improbable”
because the Kremlin can achieve its goals without disbanding the non-Russian
republics (rosbalt.ru/russia/2018/02/15/1682709.html).

Irina Gordienko, the North Caucasus
correspondent for Novaya gazeta, says
that one should not make too much of what is happening in Daghestan. It has
happened before and the use of national quotas for the leadership in that
republic “had begun to die already in Soviet times.” Thus, the latest Moscow
actions are “neo-colonialism or an attempt to impose external rule.”

After all, “all the force structures
in the republic have always been headed by Russians or with Russians as the
deputies” who actually gave the orders. Moreover, plans to fight corruption there
have a long history. Nothing has changed them, except perhaps campaign needs.

Natalya Zubarevich, a regional
specialist at Moscow’s Independent Institute of Social Policy, says that in
fact Russia has long been a unitary state whatever it chooses to call itself.
Instead with the exception of Chechnya and to a lesser extent Ingushetia,
Moscow makes the decisions. In those two cases, Moscow extends preferences
which it could of course withdraw.

Now, she says, Russia is returning
to “the imperial traditions of administration,” one that represents “a transition
to the highest level” of a unitary system.Sometimes, Moscow makes mistakes as in the case of the requirement that
non-Russian republics cease making their titular languages obligatory in the
schools. But that is an exception to the rule, not a bellwether.

As far as what is going on in
Daghestan, the population there views the new people as “new ‘brooms’” who may
sweep aside some of the corruption; but they are certain to be disappointed over
time.Indeed, she says, the purges in
that North Caucasus republic are “no more than ‘a pre-election move.’”

Vitaly Kamyshev, a Moscow political
scientist, agrees, although he says the situation in Daghestan represents a
case of both sides going too far. “But on the whole, the situation in the country
is still under control.”If the center
pushes too far or if the republics resist too much, that could change and lead
to a different situation entirely.

And Andrey Okara, the director of
the Moscow Center for East European Research, offers another reason why Moscow
is unlikely to do away with all aspects of formal democracy: Ukraine. Russia
and Ukraine are each conscious of what the other does and often strive to do
just the opposite.